Fantastic Four 220
“…And the Lights Went Out All Over the World!”
Published April 1980
Writer: John Byrne
Pencils: Byrne
Inks: Sinnott
Letters: Jim Novak and Irving Watanabe
Colors: Bob Sharen
Editor: Jim Salicrup
Cover: Byrne and Sinnott

Synopsis

Members of the Fantastic Four are scattered around New York when all mechanical devices shut down. After saving lives, the team regroups at the Baxter Building, where they learn from the Avengers that it was a world-wide phenomenon. To investigate, the team boards its ICMB and heads to the North Pole. After a crash landing, they discover a huge alien presence.

What’s going on here?

So remember in my last post where I said FF 219 was the first issue of a Doug Moench / Bill Sienkiewicz run that would take us up to the first John Byrne written issue? That wasn’t entirely true. This comic is the first John Byrne-written issue (he writes the next issue as well), and it’s a pretty good one.

I don’t know the story behind why Byrne wrote and drew these two issues (Joe Sinnott inked), and why they appear after the first Moench / Sienkiewicz issue. My guess is the Byrne stories were once intended to be one longer story, likely an annual, and it was broken in two and used as inventory issues due to some deadline problems. Notably, there isn’t a single fight scene in this issue, which is almost unheard of for a standard Marvel comic of this era and which suggests it was a longer story chopped in two (assuming the fighting happens in part two). The issue also recaps the team’s origin at length, more evidence it was intended as a stand-alone comic that might be picked up by new readers. And there’s a pin-up at the end, which indicates the page count didn’t come out evenly when they cut the story in two.

Byrne has a long history of co-plotting the X-Men with Chris Claremont, and had written comics for Charlton, but this is just his second Marvel writing credit (following Marvel Two-In-One 50). Yet it has many of Byrne’s familiar fingerprints, including cameos of other Marvel heroes (the Avengers, Vindicator), something Canadian, callbacks to the Lee/Kirby run and cool alien stuff. In all, an auspicious Fantastic Four debut for Byrne.


What I liked

Furthering the case that this story was intended for new readers, Byrne introduces each of the FF members in turn, and gives them a chance to show off their powers. First up is Ben (who helpfully tells new readers he’s not as invulnerable as the Hulk):

Then comes Sue:

… Johnny …

and finally Reed.

All of these vignettes are elegant little snapshots into the four, and I suspect not a little influenced by a similar sequence in Fantastic Four No. 1.


I liked the inclusion of the Avengers and especially Vindicator (this is before he changed his name to Guardian), which weren’t really necessary for story-telling purposes but serve to weave the FF into the rest of the Marvel universe:

Some fun Ben/Reed banter:

The alien installation at the North Pole looks impressive, and reminded me a lot of the Master of the World story in Alpha Flight 3-4 (also by Byrne).

What I didn’t like

Despite taking up two pages, the retelling of the FF’s origin looked pretty lackluster and wan.

Reed’s plan for investigating a world-wide power outage is … just go up in a spaceship and hope you see something suspicious? Some scientist.

Also, every car, plane and mechanical device around the world suddenly switches off and no one dies?

Anything else?

This pin-up by Joe Sinnott seems pretty obviously an unused cover for FF 214. I think the design is more dynamic than the Byrne cover they used, but you can judge for yourself here.

A cool house ad. I can’t identify the artist and the signature is hard to read, but maybe it’s James Sherman, who was active around that time.

Overall

A fun surprise